Honorable
by Hotaru Nakama
Summary: In a warrior's last moments of life, what will his final thoughts be? The people who made him into who he is, the place he came from, and his journey to realizing that he's become the man he always wanted to be. Renji/Rukia, Ichigo/Bya/Ren moments.


_It's nighttime now. When did the sun go down? I can't remember, it seemed I only closed my eyes for a moment and when they opened the bright blue sky had darkened to deep indigo. Out here I can see every star that studs the blackness like tiny diamonds sewn into a velvet blanket, I would count them if I were in more control of my senses, but my vision has gone dizzy and vertigo steals my ability to focus on anything for too long. The sand is cold, my body is cold, even the blood pooled around my broken body is cold. But even with everything around me slowly freezing in the cool night air, I can feel the sweat beading on my skin and trickling down my forehead, arms, and legs. Shaking, I can't stop shaking. I am so fucking tired, but every time I try to close my eyes and sleep my body flinches involuntarily and I jolt awake, the pain singing through my body and keeping me just on the side of consciousness. Blood. So much blood. I never knew a person could bleed this much, but now I'm drowning in a sea of sticky, salty crimson._

_If I've lost that much blood, shouldn't I be dead by now? Hours ago I thought I was just moments away from death, but now I'm not sure. Am I in the process of dying, or am I simply being suspended on the edge of life until someone finds me? Like one of those toys on a string from the world of the living... Oh hell, what did Ichigo call those things? Yo-yos, I think. Yeah, that's it, like a yo-yo dangling at the end of the string just a few mere feet from the ground. That's what I feel like, just a few inches away from death but being held back by something. What? Probably my own damned stubbornness. I don't even have the good sense to just let go when it's the end, no, gotta hold on until the very last second._

_How long have I been here? It feels like days ago when I faced the sexta espada – that blue-haired bastard – and got my ass handed to me on a fuckin' silver platter. I landed a few good blows myself, but in the end after he shattered my bankai I knew I was royally screwed. His final blow knocked me out for a time and I thought I was a goner then, but after Kami knows how long I woke up and I was still here in the hellhole Heuco Mundo, in agony from head to toe and unable to even reach over beside me to pick up my broken zanpakuto. _

_Except for the little flashes of pain here or there when some part of my body goes into spasm, the pain has almost entirely disappeared. All I feel now is the cold settling inside as the liquid in my veins pours out in gushes through the hole that teal-haired freak left in my chest. When exactly did I stop feeling pain? I don't know. All I know is that lying here I've had a lot of time to just think, even as scattered as my thoughts are becoming. I keep thinking about my life and all the people in it, and wondering at how I ended up here._

_Not surprisingly, I've done a lot of thinking about Rukia, my girl. I wonder where she is right now. I hope she's safe, or at least faring better than I am. Of course she is, she was always stronger than me. Embarrassing as hell to admit, but true none-the-less, it was clear right from the day she saved me from those guys who were beating me up in Inuzuri. Can you believe that? **She **came and saved **me**. That's how freaking pathetic I am, had to be saved by a little girl. Everyone thinks my desire to become a strong shinigami and rose to the position of fukutaichou in the 6th Division started with Kuchiki-taichou, but really, it was all because of her; that spunky, periwinkle-eyed, fearless girl I met in Inuzuri decades ago. It all started that night we were huddled around a fire in the filthy streets of the Rukongai, gazing at the distant, gated Siereitei when she turned to me with eyes shining with determination in the flickering, warm firelight. We were all alone that night, we had long since buried our friends in the ground a few miles outside of the district where a cool stream cut through the wilderness._

"_Renji!" She exclaimed, prompting me to open one lazy garnet eye and gaze down at her from where I had started to doze, holding her close to help keep her warm._

"_Eh? What is it?" I asked with a yawn._

"_Promise me something," she said eagerly. "Promise me that we'll go to the academy and get stronger, then we'll become shinigami together and join the Gotei 13. Onegai, Renji, promise me!"_

_I scratched the back of my neck and gazed into the distance at the glimmering white city, then looked back down at her and smiled. I would have done anything for her, gone anywhere she wanted me to go. I still would. "Hai, Rukia," I agreed. "We'll go to the academy and become shinigami together. We'll join the Gotei 13. I'll do that with you."_

_Her eyes lit up even brighter and she grinned at me, leaping into my lap and shocking the hell out of me when she grabbed my face and brought me in for a quick but warm kiss. "Arigato, Renji!" She said happily, then snuggled back down against me and buried her face in my neck, clearly not seeing the stars swirling in my eyes from the brief contact of our lips._

"_Anything for you," I replied, tightening my arms around her and resting my cheek on her silken raven hair. _

_We made it to the academy together, but then Kuchiki-taichou came into her life and in one fell swoop the only person I'd loved all my life was gone. Rukia and I didn't see each other for a long time after that, but every day that we were apart I swore that I would be better, stronger, more powerful for her, to win her back. The image of the day she left the academy to go and live at the Kuchiki manor, of us saying goodbye before she turned and walked out with taichou, looking up at him with fucking stars in her eyes, with love and admiration the way she used to look at me, burned into my brain and I used it to fuel my fire to fight tooth and nail to earn my place in the Gotei 13 so I could be with her again. I swore I'd do absolutely anything. Little did I know years later I would be the fukutaichou to her adoptive brother, and once we re-established our friendship I vowed that someday I'd tell her that I was in love with her. But right after I resolved to do so, she disappeared into the world of the living and I once again lost her. Aizen's plot to destroy the Siereitei and Gotei 13 landed her in the Repentance Center and she was sentenced to death. _

_And then... Then came Kurosaki Ichigo. That orange-haired, teenage brat who swooped into Soul Society, gave me the ass-kicking of my life and then went on to save Rukia from death just as I had resolved to do the same. I wanted so badly to hate him, I guess I **did **hate him for a while, but not because I saw him as an enemy of the shinigami or because he was standing up against our laws. I hated him because from the moment I saw him, that kid scared the living hell out of me. He had more power and conviction in one finger than I have in my entire body, a fearsome strength that I had never witnessed in my entire life. He was more powerful than even Kuchiki-taichou, and it pissed me off because I'd worked my entire damn life, nearly killed myself time and time again for just a fraction of that strength. _

_That, and he was brave enough to be the man that I never had the guts to be for Rukia. Even if he never said he loved her, he showed it to her in actions, and I knew right then and there that I would lose once again, this time to a fifteen year old kid. He's accomplished what I never could; to surpass Kuchiki-taichou, beat him in battle, and steal Rukia's heart in the process. The entrance of him into her life guaranteed that my dream would never come true. I was destined to forever be the stray dog jumping at the moon, but never reaching it._

_But really, I never hated Ichigo even if at first I wanted to. I was just completely, utterly jealous of him. Ultimately, he became one of the best friends I've ever had, and honestly... If I could have ever chosen to have someone as my brother, it would be him._

_But of everyone in my life – Ichigo, Rukia, my other friends – the person I've thought most about is my taichou. I guess at the end of the day, it really does all come back to him. If he'd never married Hisana, she never would have made him promise to adopt Rukia, then he never would have come and taken her away from me, and I'd never have wanted to be stronger or more powerful. I wouldn't be the man I am today. It was Kuchiki-taichou who offered me the position of his fukutaichou and helped to train me, and even when I raised my blade against him, he didn't throw me aside like Aizen or Zaraki did, but he forgave me and in the end showed the heart that beats inside his chest when he stepped in front of Gin's blade. It's because of him I fought to be everything I could be and it's because of him that I've become more than I ever thought I could be._

_I am no longer the stray dog from Inuzuri, scrapping for food and searching endlessly for shelter. I don't have to die like my friends in Rukongai; cold and hungry with nothing to show for my life. I am a shinigami, a warrior, the fukutaichou of my division. I have friends and have lived in a warm, safe apartment that might not be much to most people, but where I come from it would be considered a palace. My peers respect and admire me, the men below me in the division look up to me, and my enemies have feared me. I am the powerful, strong, courageous man I strived to be all those years ago. And even if there are some things I regret, some business that will remain unfinished, I'm damn proud of myself for what I accomplished in my life here in Soul Society. I made something of myself, and that's enough for me._

_I'm getting so tired. My lungs don't seem to want to pull in air anymore. This should alarm me, but it doesn't. Instead I find myself overcome by a sense of peace and contentment, and I'm able to close my eyes now without the jolts of pain disturbing me. My pulse is faint and I can feel my soul beginning to disconnect, to break free from the chain that's held me down like a balloon released from the hand of a child._

_I've dangled as long as I can at the end of the yo-yo. Now it's time for me to let myself fall. I don't know what's on the other side of this life, but I believe that it's going to be something amazing. It's definitely going to be an adventure, just like my journey here from street rat to shinigami._

_Goodbye, Rukia..._

_Goodbye, Ichigo..._

_Goodbye, Taichou... Arigatou. It is because of you that I get to die this way; a fighter, a warrior, a powerful shinigami. Because of you, I can die honorably._

* * *

><p>Byakuya Kuchiki moved carefully through the desert, keeping his senses alert for anyone or anything that might approach him. Earlier while he and a few of his men were fighting off a horde of Menos Grande he'd felt the surge of reiatsu from his fukutaichou's bankai release, but then, strangely Renji's spiritual pressure had disappeared almost completely. His eyes surveyed the endless expanse of white sand, narrowing when he spotted something a short distance away lying on the ground. His stomach churned fitfully as his chest tightened in sudden fear, but he approached calmly, a numb kind of dread passing over him when he realized he was walking up to the body of his fukutaichou, Renji's crimson hair fanned out around his unnaturally pale face, covered in blood with the sand sticking to him everywhere.<p>

"Renji..." The sixth division taichou said quietly, unsure how he was even able to force his voice from his throat.

Renji did not respond, his glazed-over, sightless garnet eyes staring unblinkingly at the night sky.

Byakuya moved forward slowly, feeling like his limbs weighed a thousand pounds each, his heart thudding painfully as he stooped down and pressed his fingers to the spot on Renji's throat where he should have been able to feel a pulse. Nothing. The midnight-haired, noble taichou wanted to scream at how cold and stiff Renji's tanned, tattooed skin felt. He looked over and spotted the broken shards of Zabimaru, placing the hilt of the katana across Renji's chest.

"Arigatou, Renji. You were a brave warrior and loyal fukutaichou, and you have done our division and the Gotei 13 proud. I have been honored to serve along side you all these years," Byakuya told his fukutaichou, leaning forward to place a light kiss of respect on his tattooed forehead.

"Byakuya?"

The noble froze at the sound of the subtitute shinigami's voice, turning his head to look at the orange-haired teen and trying to shield Renji's body from his sight. "Kurosaki..."

"What happened? Who is that?" Ichigo asked, stepping around to the side and craning his neck to see who Byakuya was standing over. Byakuya had to look away from the teen's face as a choked, pained gasp escaped his lips, then the sound of his shunpo as he rushed over and dropped to his knees by his fallen friend, his breath coming in ragged bursts and his face ashen. "RENJI!" The redhead shinigami's name was ripped from his friend's throat in a guttural, animalistic howl of agony. "No, Renji, no! N-Not you, n-not y-you! Byakuya, shit, get help! Call for Hanatarou, U-Unohana, _somebody_! For the love of Kami, _do something_!"

Byakuya straightened up slowly, his eyes downcast and his voice a bare whispered contrast against the substitute shinigami's hysterical pleas. "He is already gone, Kurosaki, there is nothing more to be done for him."

"No, no, no, onegai, no," Ichigo shook his head furiously, continuing to cry and chant Renji's name like a mantra, burying his face into the fukutaichou's thick, blood-matted crimson hair and sobbing brokenly.

Byakuya said nothing, knowing that no words he could offer would bring the boy any comfort and deciding it wasn't his place to stay and grieve for Renji while his closest friend and ally was there. He turned and started to walk away, haunted by the stricken look in Ichigo's tea-colored eyes and hearing his sobs echoing his mind, then stopped, realizing he'd forgotten to remove Renji's fukutaichou badge as was customary for the taichou of a division to do so it could be given to the replacement. But when he turned around and saw Ichigo still kneeling over Renji, clutching the badge tightly against his chest, he decided not to go back.

_I do not have the right to take it from you, just as I do not have the right to grieve for a man that was neither a friend nor lover, but only a comrade. Honor him with your tears that I cannot shed for him, and mourn with the comfort that you had a connection deeper than I have had with anyone in a long time, because my heart is too broken to reach out anymore, and it is the reason I never really got to know the man I served with every day. While I may ache in my heart for the loss of my fukutaichou, I must go forward with my duties and never let on to my true pain. Cherish the fact you do not have such responsibilities, Kurosaki. _

The noble taichou once again turned away and shunpoed a far distance away from Ichigo and Renji. When he heard the roars and hisses of approaching Hollows, he calmly drew Senbonzakura, then shrugged out of his taichou haori, letting the cheap garment crumple unceremoniously in the sand.

_If he is not my fukutaichou, I no longer desire to be a taichou._


End file.
